The Body Politic and the Parents Metaphor

Emperors generally did not worry that pardoning crimes and revoking associated punishments would constitute an injustice to victims or erode the legality of the law, as sovereignty was often understood not only in relation to the body politic but also through the framework of parenthood. When individuals of flesh and blood were translated into aggregations of nameless parts of a unity which was represented by the emperor, the suffering inflicted on the victims and the suffering inflicted on offenders by punishment were metaphysically equivalent – both were detrimental to the whole body. Whereas the emperor punished offenders primarily to maintain the order of the whole, he could also pardon offenders on behalf of his people – the parts of the whole – if it served the interests of his empire. Furthermore, Han emperors also claimed to be the mother and father of their subjects, whose compassion compelled them to grant imperial amnesties to all under Heaven. Therefore the justice that protected individual interests was required to be compromised with mercy and love. However, frequently pardoning culprits on a large scale directly paralyzed the justice system.